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No Man is an Island

I’ve been quite busy and can’t post as often as I would have liked. Last week, I rushed my Convict Lake Sunrise image out before I had enough time to go through all the photos from my trip. Had I taken my time, I would have posted this image instead. I like this shot better than the previous for a few reasons: I decided to cut out most of the boring sky and included more foreground. The reflections were much crisper. I also like the slightly darker exposure (1/4s vs 1/3s).

I answered a couple of emails asking whether the reflections in my previous image were real or computer generated. They were real. I don’t add artificial elements in my photos. It was windy, and the lake surface was choppy. This area of the lake had a section of lake bed gravels rising above the water surface, creating natural barrier blocking some of the lake’s outer water movements. Like a beaver, I moved enough gravels and drift woods to completely block off the lake’s current. In the previous shot, the “levee” wasn’t completed, and there were water movements that made the reflections a little softer. In this shot, the water surface had settled nicely.

Rob Hudson noted there is a bit of surrealism in my previous photo. Indeed, I thought about Dali’s famous piece, The Persistence of Memory when I composed these shots. I just couldn’t find a melting clock to hang on the table – so melting snow instead :) Last but not least, as some viewers mentioned, the black and white landscape was inspired by none other than Ansel Adams.